Xi Jinping: China’s president a populist strongman

An emerging theory in the tea houses around Beijing is that Xi Jinping will use his popularity with the public and power within the party to alter the line of succession. This would be akin to a revolution.
Photo: Reuters

With the star power of Obama and the political leanings of Putin, China’s Xi Jinping is using populist politics learned from the West to entrench his power.

Just before half time
Xi Jinping
pulled up a well-stuffed armchair and began watching the game. Carlton was playing Fremantle at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium and among the crowd that Saturday evening was the man set to become China’s next president. It was June 2010 and Xi had surprised diplomats on both sides by requesting to see an AFL game during his six-day tour of Australia. Even more puzzling was a desire by the then-vice president to have the rules explained.

That job fell to AFL chairman and former star player
Mike Fitzpatrick
, who talked Xi through the basics of kicking, passing and restarts with the aid of a Sherrin football. “He seemed to have some interest in sport," Fitzpatrick recalls.

But Xi’s interest went beyond the rules. What he really wanted to know from Fitzpatrick and his other AFL tutor, then-Victorian premier
John Brumby
, was how sport was used by politicians as a mechanism to connect with the public.

US first lady Michelle Obama (second from left) and her mother Marian Robinson (left) share a light moment with Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan at a guest house in Beijing in March, 2014.
Photo: Andy Wong

“He was interested to learn about the interface between sport and politics in Australia," says Fitzpatrick. And so for the best part of an hour, as Fremantle overwhelmed Carlton, the three men sat by the glass in the stadium’s Endeavour room and talked sport and politics.

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Radical remake

For an unelected leader from a country where political populism was frowned upon, it would appear an unusual topic. But Xi’s line of questioning that night gave an early hint of his ambitions to radically remake politics in China.

In the 20 months since assuming power, the 60-year-old has done this by placing himself firmly at the centre of China’s political narrative. He is the country’s new strongman – a populist dictator not seen since the days of
Mao Zedong
. This seismic change is only now being digested by sinologists and strategic analysts, yet for Australia the implications are vast.

The demise of China’s collective leadership model means Australia’s economic and strategic fortunes are increasingly in the hands of one man – a man who has shown himself to be a ruthless autocrat, bold economic reformer, aggressive foreign policy expansionist and deft populist.

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Added to this new concentration of power is the longevity of Xi’s tenure. His two, five-year terms will run until November 2022, but his power may endure longer if he retains any of his titles.

Critical to Australia’s future

It makes China’s top leader potentially more critical to Australia’s future than any politician in Canberra. It’s a point which can’t be overstated, given Australia is today more reliant on China for trade than it was on Japan in the 1970s or on Britain after World War II. In the first quarter of this year, 37 per cent of Australian exports went to China. At the same time, China is the region’s emerging power and under Xi has shown itself to be increasingly assertive in territorial disputes with India, Japan and its south-east Asian neighbours.

Yet to many in Australia and the broader Anglo-sphere, Xi is just another bland Chinese politician, like his predecessor,
Hu Jintao
. It’s a perception that couldn’t be more wrong. Indeed, a better comparison is to view Xi as a leader with the star power of US President
Barack Obama
and an easy smile to match, overlaid with the political leanings of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. This is the paradox of China’s fifth leader since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

Ask any western politician or business leader about meeting Xi and they inevitably mention his “quiet presence". Both Brumby and Fitzpatrick use these exact words, the latter adding that his guest had an “easy confidence" and “strong stature". This portrays Xi as an almost regal figure, which is partially correct despite China’s claims to being a socialist republic. Thanks to his father’s role as a revolutionary fighter alongside Mao, Xi is indeed Chinese royalty, or part of the so-called “red aristocracy," a group known as the “princelings".

“They believe that their fathers won the war and therefore it is only natural that they will run the country," says Chinese author and dissident
Yu Jie
via phone from the US. “They believe only the princelings have the right to run China."

‘Sons of shopkeepers’

This group, which numbers a few hundred at most, is Xi’s power base and their influence across the party, military and state-owned economy is the main reason the President has consolidated power in record time. His fellow princelings view Xi as a legitimate representative of their class, which has enabled him to emerge as the most powerful leader since Mao. This was not the case for his two immediate predecessors, who were known as “sons of shopkeepers" among the elite.

The political economist Andy Xie describes Xi as the “emperor". “And we all know that the emperor makes his own rules," Xie told a Shanghai audience in May.

This power to break the established order has allowed Xi to quickly dismantle the firmly held idea that no leader should be bigger than the Communist Party. Such a convention was put in place after the death of Mao to ensure the madness of his reign was never again visited on China. There would be no more famines because farmers melted down their tools to increase steel production, or sending of intellectuals to the countryside, as no one person would ever again hold unchecked power.

This meant the general secretary of the party was the first among equals on the Politburo Standing Committee, the top decision making body which currently consists of seven members. But under Xi this convention quickly faded.

“The idea of collective leadership is now totally dead," says
Willy Lam
, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It is a return to Mao’s so-called one voice chamber. On the standing committee there is only one person talking and that’s Xi."

Breaking the unbreakable

Xi’s authority has also allowed him to casually junk the other supposedly unbreakable rule of Chinese politics, which stipulated that leaders should be officially dull and keep a respectable distance from the public. It meant no retail politics or publicity stunts. Xi responded to this by declaring himself a “sports lover" and being photographed kicking a football and mixing casually with China’s Winter Olympics team at the Sochi Games. Perhaps emboldened by his tutoring in Australia, the public has also learnt their leader often watches late night soccer matches, and takes in the occasional basketball or boxing fixture.

Other revelations, which were previously considered state secrets, include Xi’s claim to Obama that he swims 1km each morning before work and even likes mountain climbing. More ominously, his favourite US film is said to be The Godfather.

For a public accustomed to being served up a bland but regular dose of unsmiling officials conducting inspection tours, Xi has proven a revelation. He’s a natural at the less than subtle art of retail politics and in keeping with this has resurrected the role of China’s First Lady, a position not filled since the days of Mao. But rather than a strident hardliner like
Jiang Qing
– Mao’s third wife who led the infamous Gang of Four during the later stages of the cultural revolution – Xi has the glamorous
Peng Liyuan
by his side. She is a celebrity in her own right.

The 51-year-old folk singer, who joined the People’s Liberation Army at 18 and entertained front-line troops during the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979, is a powerful adornment to Xi’s administration. She is a rare splash of colour within a grey party, who shot to fame as a regular performer at the annual CCTV new year’s gala. These days she is a civilian member of the PLA, holding the rank of major general, although the public is more likely to see Peng wearing an emerging local designer than army greens. This is all part of Xi’s new style of retail politics, designed to burnish his stature among the public and in doing so accumulate political capital.

Public plaudits

While popularity is hard to gauge in China, as there are no opinion polls or opposition, Xi’s anti-corruption campaign and crackdown on lavish government banquets has certainly won him plaudits among the public. This has allowed him to amass far more political capital than the two leaders who went before him.

But it begs the question – what does he plan to spend it on? An emerging theory in the tea houses around Beijing is that Xi will use his popularity with the public and power within the party to alter the line of succession. This would be akin to a revolution. As it stands today, Xi will step down as the party’s General Secretary in November 2022, allowing the 6th generation of leaders to assume power.

In a testament to the long-term planning of the party and factional bargaining before Xi came to power, two candidates have been identified as possible replacements and were elevated to the 25-member Politburo in November 2012. But according to Lam, Xi wants to divert from this well laid-out path. “It is very possible he will pick his own 6th generation successor," says Lam. “I’ve been told that Xi is not impressed with the credentials of those who have been anointed." As China has no enforceable constitution or independent institutions, then Xi need only win support from fellow party members to retain some or all of his power.

Rule from the shadows

That would leave it open for Xi to put his “own man" in as a figurehead and then rule from the shadows, like Putin did in Russia during his four years as prime minister before returning to the presidency in 2012. “He is an admirer of Putin and wants to take a page from Putin’s playbook," says Lam.

This admiration was on display in late May during a regional security summit in Shanghai, when Putin was seated next to Xi during the opening gala and stood next to the Chinese leader for the official photo. And at a time when Putin was being shunned by Europe and America, Xi also handed him a full ceremonial welcome to China. This followed Xi making Russia the first foreign destination he visited after coming to power.

So pundits are now openly talking about a situation where Xi will hand over some of his titles in 2022, but retain the real power behind them. “The emperor does not retire unless he decides to," says the political economist Xie. “All these rules about age limits don’t apply to this guy. . . he’s like Putin. I think he will stay in power for 20 years no matter what title he has."

One way to achieve this would be to continue on as chairman of the Central Military Commission – the top position in the armed forces. In addition Xi could remain chairman of the three “leading groups" he established covering national security, economic reform and propaganda. These groups are party organs which sit above government structures and would therefore allow Xi to remain in control of China beyond his official term.

“Setting up these groups has never been done before and some people think it is unconstitutional or at least against the spirit of the constitution," says Lam. But with no independent courts, parliament or media there is no mechanism outside the party to challenge Xi.

Centre of the elite

Picture the boy. It’s the autumn of 1962 and a nine year-old Xi Jinping is at the very centre of China’s privileged elite. His father,
Xi Zhongxun
, is the youngest vice premier in Mao’s government and is set for a long career at the very top of the Communist Party. This affords Xi and his two siblings the best China has to offer and every day their elevated status is re-enforced. But it’s not just the best schools, apartment and cars; there is also the prospect of political power.

“The children of this revolutionary elite were told that they, too, would someday take their rightful place in the Chinese leadership," a former friend of Xi’s told a US diplomat in cables released by Wikileaks.

But then history intervened. In an early skirmish ahead of the Cultural Revolution, Xi’s father was purged and the boy’s world quickly changed. The family’s elevated status evaporated and seven years later, as a 15 year-old, Xi was sent to rural Shaanxi province to “learn from the peasants". “It was like being sent into exile," Xi told Chinese magazine Zhonghua Ernu in 2000.

It was 1969 and Xi would ultimately spend seven years living in a hillside cave and working the fields. And while the scars of his “exile" are sure to remain today, Xi’s arrival in Shaanxi would mark the beginning of his political life. From his earliest days in the countryside, negotiating the byzantine structures of Chinese politics became a necessity – initially for survival and later for advancement.

According to the account Xi gave to Zhonghua Ernu, he was initially considered too “politically suspect" for a place on the lowly production brigade. In would take him eight attempts and a series of long conversations with the village head to prove he had the required “revolutionary spirit" to work in the fields. After winning entry to the Production Brigade, Xi eventually became its head and was allowed to join the party, even though his father was still political poison.

“He chose to survive by becoming redder than red," says the US embassy source, known as the professor. This continued on his return to Beijing in 1975, when Xi began plotting his course through the party. He was “exceptionally ambitious" and had his “eye on the prize from the very beginning", according to the professor.

Brutality of the Cultural Revolution

While other children of the elite recovered from the brutality of the Cultural Revolution by chasing girls, doing drugs and drinking, Xi laid out a plan “that would maximise his opportunities to rise to the top levels of the party," according to the professor. And so as his elite friends were reading Western literature and catching up on the progress of
Richard Nixon
and
Charles DeGaulle
, Xi turned to Marx.

While he was notionally doing a chemical engineering degree at the prestigious Tsinghua University, Xi’s real line of study was applied Marxism. “It was not a real university education," says the professor.

Xi even became an officer in the People’s Liberation Army and wore his uniform every day. And after graduation, thanks to his father’s political “rehabilitation", Xi joined the staff of China’s defence minister, General
Geng Biao
. But after three years at the very centre of power in Beijing, Xi made a decision which would define his ambition. In 1982 he headed for the provinces. It was the only path to “central power", he told the professor, adding:“[I] will be back one day".

It would take Xi two and half decades to make good on this promise, but there’s no doubting his political judgment. Initially he worked as a low-ranking party official in Hebei province, before moving to the wealthy coastal province of Fujian, across the straits from Taiwan. He was made governor of the province in 2000, before being promoted to party secretary in the neighbouring manufacturing hub of Zhejiang two years later. His provincial education was topped off with an eight-month stint as the top party official in Shanghai, after a corruption scandal claimed his predecessor.

Finally in November 2007, Xi returned to Beijing, after winning a place on the Politburo Standing Committee – the country’s top decision making body. During his 25 years in the provinces, Xi gradually shed his reputation for being “redder than red", marking his transition from Marxist to pragmatist.

Opening up to the world

As China gradually opened up to the world so it appears did Xi. In Fujian he courted Taiwanese investment and later ran the manufacturing hub of Zhejiang at a time when foreign companies were pouring into China.

“Hard working" and “low key" were the words used to describe Xi from his days in the provinces, according to a separate Wikileaks cable. “His working efficiency was pretty high. That’s pretty rare among the officials we meet here," said one source quoted in the cable.

This has bolstered the view of Xi as a technocrat and since coming to power he has embarked upon a host of economic reforms aimed at prolonging China’s elevated growth levels.

According to the Wikileaks cables Xi is also familiar and comfortable with the West, having a sister who lives in Canada, an ex-wife in London and a brother in Hong Kong. According to the professor he is “favourably disposed towards the US".

But Xi should not be considered a pro-Western leader. In his 20 months in power, he has smiled and shaken hands with Western politicians and business leaders, while at the same time railing against Western values like the rule of law, constitutionalism and freedom of the press. He has moved to crack down hard on civil society groups and crushed dissenting voices.

Document 9

This loathing for Western values was outlined in the mysteriously named Document 9, published last year as an ideological call to arms to the party and warning against liberal infiltration. “Their goal is to use Western constitutional democracy to undermine the party’s leadership," said the document which was leaked to The New York Times. This document and Xi’s hardline stance initially had him pinned as the ultimate party man.

But in recent months he has gone beyond this. He is now above the party and even has his own dogma, known as the “Chinese Dream". Xi has described this as “national rejuvenation, improving people’s lives and construction of a better society and stronger military". It is not unlike the American Dream, but the Chinese version is increasingly about Xi and his own ambitions to be remembered alongside Mao as one of the country’s great leaders.

This is not without risks. The most obvious of these comes via Xi’s high profile campaign against corruption, where he has vowed to swat “tigers and flies". While popular with a public weary of party cadres enriching themselves, in reality it looks more like an old fashioned Mao-era purge to dispense with political opponents.

“He is not using it to try and change the system," says the author Yu. “And it may not end well for him."

According to Yu, Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has triggered an internal power struggle within the party, which has the potential to destabilise China and dent the global economy if it goes wrong.

For now, with Xi’s star on the rise this looks unlikely. But in the future Western leaders may not marvel at his “quiet presence" and “easy confidence". They might cite the words of his former friend the professor, who described Xi as “cold and calculating", “detached and difficult to read" and as someone who could ultimately be “corrupted by power".

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

Communist Party officials wanting to honour Xi Jinping’s father are given detailed instructions. When visiting a white marble statue of Xi Zhongxun in rural Shaanxi province they must lay a wreath, bow three times and then walk once around the two metre high structure. Smoking and taking photos – two of China’s favourite habits – are strictly prohibited.

This procedure is outlined in a pamphlet for paying “homage" to the guerilla fighter who went on to serve as a top leader in Mao Zedong’s government. The statue, which depicts a sitting Xi Zhongxun, was erected in 2005 to commemorate his early role in the formation of modern China.

Initially, the memorial was a relatively modest affair, with a simple garden and one-room museum. But in 2010 a major upgrade began – about the same time as it became apparentthat his son, Xi Jinping, would become China’s next leader.

These days it’s a grand affair. There are 2900 pine trees in the shape of a communist star around the statue, which is surrounded by more than 30 hectares of parklands, tended by 20 full-time gardeners. The museum now spans three levels and could be mistaken for a small office block.

“His biggest achievement was to have a successful son," says one local.

This is not to downplay Xi Zhongxun’s role, but the cynicism of locals is understandable. The memorial, with its white-tipped clover, rose gardens and peach trees, is only slightly more modest than that erected for Deng Xiaoping, the late leader who opened up China’s economy and helped it recover from the madness of Mao.

According to dissident author Yu Jie, the burnishing of Xi Zhongxun’s legacy is to remind senior party members about their new leader’s lineage. “It is used to emphasise his [Xi Jinping’s] special identity within the party and help him to more easily consolidate power," says Yu.

But it’s not just a grand memorial in Xi Zhongxun’s home town. Last November a symposium was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. At the same time China Post issued two sets of stamps and state broadcaster CCTV aired a six-part documentary on his life. Three biographies on Xi Zhongxun are on the recommended reading list for party cadres.

It’s a big promotion for a man who spent 16 years in the political wilderness before overseeing the opening up of the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong in the late 1970s. But it shows that in Communist China, lineage is arguably more important than ability.